In the bottle processing industries, such as the carbonated beverage industry, it is very desirable and necessary to process large quantities of bottles rapidly. The bottles are transported in cases of various types and sizes and one of the operations that must be performed on all bottles in the processing plants are those of removing empty bottles from the carrier cases and ultimately loading filled bottles into cases. Various types of bottle uncasing and casing apparatus have been provided heretofore.
In these bottle processing plants, naturally it is desirable that the apparatus occupy a relatively small volume of space and it is preferable that the apparatus be easily adjustable so that it can be used with cases of different sizes and number of contents. The size of the cases may vary widely as to the number of bottles carried therein and the bottle positioning arrangements or locations in the cases vary appreciably from case to case.
One prior patent, U.S. Pat. No. 3,951,285, deals with bottle uncasing apparatus that is designed to be of an automatic type for engaging bottles in a case no matter what the longitudinal spacing of the bottles is in the apparatus. Such apparatus includes the provision of a plurality of rows of longitudinally closely adjacent, self operating grippers that are carried along an endless path above a moving case for automatically engaging with the necks of bottles in the cases for engaging the same and lifting them out of the case regardless of longitudinal spacing of the bottles in the case. Such apparatus involves the provision of a great number of article grippers in the apparatus and there is no positive positioning of the grippers for bottle engagement in relation to the actual location of the bottles in the carrier cases.